The original design idea for this birthday cake was a German Beer Stein but I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to add the wow factor to it. So, I had to pull my husband and my Uncle in on designing this cake. First there was the stein…I wanted to express family heritage in a family crest. So, I contacted my Uncle Jim who has, amazingly, traced our families’ lineage back to 1275! That within itself is just mind blowing! His name was Sir William Fletcher born in Cumberland, England. My Uncle graciously found several images for me to pull inspiration from but I found that I liked the full heraldic achievement best. After narrowing down the options to just two I decided that it would be best to go with a blue and silver color scheme versus the red and gold of my Great Grandfather Baron Lancelot Fletcher. Hand painting red on fondant has a tendency to streak and once the edible glaze is applied it would stick out like a sore thumb. When it came down to the shield design I was explained that the fletching symbols needed to be pointing down. I have to be honest here…I actually had to look up what a fletching was. LOL! Overall, I ended up combining the two shield designs. The cake board was specially cut to give the appearance of flagstone and is a combination of rolled fondant and royal icing. My husband suggested that most people associated beer steins with food items such as cheese, sausages and bread. This is when I decided that I would create three different cakes and each being a different flavor. The stein cake was, fittingly, made German Chocolate cake. The cheese wheel cake was vanilla with a homemade vanilla custard filling and lastly the round loaf bread was Almond Amaretto Cream cake. It was definitely a lot of work but when it came all together most found it hard to believe that it was cake! That is such an awesome feeling!